Loose Ends

By John Andes

Bob "Bric" Bricsonn, hardware store owner in Duluth, Minnesota and his friends, a civil engineer and a foreman at the local food plant come to realize that the tumultuous economic environment will soon crush and discard them. They decide there is only one way out of their financial traps. Three couples agree that desperate times call for desperate measures. The amateurs enter into the professional world of crime; a robbery, a drug buy, and drug resale down state. From the beginning the six learn that their actions have unintended and dire consequences. Errors in judgment, and misplaced enthusiasm put the plan in jeopardy from the start. Violence begets violence; intended and accidental. Alliances and relationships are fluid, because the drive for the big payoff is everyone's goal. Deception and double dealing abound. Bric struggles to keep the team on the right path, but ultimately he can trust only himself. A new player offers him a way to reach his financial goal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491705827

John Andes

John Andes was born and raised in Central Pennsylvania and received a degree in philosophy from Brown University. His business career started in New York advertising agencies. After leaving the agency world, he worked in various marketing departments, primarily in the financial services industry. He has written advertising copy and marketing materials for both B2C and B2B segments of national enterprises for over thirty-five years. He is retired, lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and has two adult sons. He coaches little league football and mentors small business owners and entrepreneurs. John has authored Farmer in the Tal, H.A., Suffer the Children, Icarus, Matryoshka, Jacob’s Ladder, Loose Ends, Control is Jack, Revenge, Adventures in House Sitting, Skull Stacker, and Street Cleaners. His web page is www.crimenovelsonline.com

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Copyright © 2013 by John Andes.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-0551-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-0582-7 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 08/21/2013

Contents

Saturday Night

And Sunday Morning

Monday, Monday

Thursday’s Child

Freaky Friday

Blue Monday

Shrove Tuesday

Any Wednesday

Thursday Work Night

Great Friday

Drug Deal Leads

To Seven Deaths

Saturday Night Dance

The Day Of Rest

Terminal Exit

Windy City Madness

Ord To Dal

Plan your work and work your plan.

The better your plan, the better your work,

unless people are involved.

SATURDAY NIGHT

AND SUNDAY MORNING

1:25 AM. Where is she? She said she was going to stop and have a drink with some friends after her shift. Her shift ended over three hours ago. Where is she? Is she up to her old tricks? Has she met some guy, who buys her drinks, tells how beautiful she is and how she’s wasting her time with a boring shopkeeper; an older guy like me? Has she just decided to get falling down drunk to express her anger at me for some unknown grievance? Is she angry with me or her own failures in life? Will she come home or go with him? Or will she be helped to the couch in the den of one her nursing pals? Drunk or stoned on stolen meds. The knot in my stomach is dull yet all-inclusive. I had this feeling years ago when my young wife decided to search for a lover. I nod off.

I am awakened by the premonition that something evil or wrong is happening. I am awakened by the feeling of dread. Of abandonment. My eyes open and will not close. I get out of bed, take a pee, get a drink of water, and struggle to get back to sleep. The greater the struggle, the greater the odds of not sleeping. Late night cable TV is a distraction, but it is not sleep inducing. I pace. I worry. I feel sorry for myself. This is an old set of circumstances and feelings. It goes back to when I was a child and my mother was institutionalized . . . depression fueled by prescription medicines and booze. She was found sitting on the attic windowsill in her nightgown. Dad and his brother, the doctor, got her to an institution for rest, therapy and a regimen of strong medication.

She stayed there for a year. I waited for her to come back to me. I thought it was all my fault. Maybe it was. Maybe I was just too much of a hassle, a burden for her. A year after she came home she had another child. Now I was not the baby. Once again I was abandoned. These two events set the pattern of my relationships with women. Meet and charm them. Love them and be loved. Push the relationship. Demand control. Exhibit infantile jealousy. Push them away in fits of irrationality. Feel abandonment deeply. Make it happen. Complete the process. Experience the self-fulfilling prophecy of my perceived relationship with my mother. Be alone and lonely. Only to repeat the cycle with other women who love me. Maybe if Ellie and I were married, she would take our relationship more seriously. Maybe she would love me enough not to hurt me. Maybe I could explain all this to her, if we were married.

Why am I even here at all? Dad wanted me to get an Ivy League education and Brown wanted a point guard; a floor general. The marriage was set. We won the Ivy League Championship my senior year. Then the wheels fell off. That spring, Mom died in a auto accident, and Dad fell into a deep depression. He begged me to come home and run the family business; The Bric’s Hardware Store. My sister, the selfish bitch, had built her own life in Montana, and was not about to give that up. I was the only one left. I yielded to paternal pleas, and took over the store. Within one year Dad died. I suspect of a broken heart. But I know alcohol fueled his demise. So, here I am. Stuck in nowhere Minnesota. The economy is crumbling, and the hope of getting out of the mess is slim, very slim. My dreams of world domination have been reduced to kegs of nails, racks of tools, and stacks of late notices, both the companies and our customers. My present situation is proof that no good deed goes unpunished.

Every noise gets my attention. The ensuing silence fuels my anxiety. No slam of a car door. No turn of the front door handle. The headlights of a car passing my driveway spike my hope that she has come back to me. The darkness that follows mirrors my gloom. The myriad minutiae that bounce through my brain have become large jagged thoughts painfully scraping my soul. I think about what I have to do tomorrow . . . or today. File the last report. Pick up dry cleaning. Get gas. Call about the past due accounts. Each task ends with her. Or with her and me. Only now there is no her. Only me. I have to be better so she will be there. What does she want me to do to prove my devotion?

The usual fare of soft porn and grade B action movies. Thank God Ted Turner shows classic films twenty-four/seven. Black and white cops and robbers grist. Musicals that got our minds off the Cold War and the Red Menace. I need a drink. And a joint. Scotch neat and good grass will ease me back to the land of nod. So I pour and roll. Fire up the stick. Sip the warmth. The edges soften. The points of pain are numbed. Light from the TV fills the room as if all the floor and ceiling lights were on. The room changes shape and composition as the scenes of the movie change. It’s almost as if the furniture is being moved. Frank Lovejoy, Aldo Ray and some studio starlet in training are arguing at a kitchen table. A car pulls into the drive and up to the door. Its lights shine through the four windowpanes and filmy curtain on the back door. They react with dread. They are silent. Lovejoy reaches for the light switch. Ray and the girl stand flat against the wall trying to be invisible. The car door closes. The camera moves into to the doorknob as it turns. The door is opened and the camera pans up to the intruder. It’s Ellie. Home at last

Have you been waiting up for me, Bric? How sweet. Sorry, I’m so late. But, my relief was late. She had car trouble. Then I really needed a drink. By the time I got to Billy’s, everybody was leaving. They stayed for my drink and bought me a second. But, I’m home now. Tired. I need a shower. And I could use some of what you are smoking. It was a mother of a shift. Two auto accidents. Twelve people all banged up. And Mr. Swanson, you know the old man, who runs the smoke and gift shop at the mall. Well, he slipped on the ice in the parking lot and fractured his hip and two ribs. Tonight the ER was so damned crowded with patients, doctors, staff, families and lawyers; I just wanted to disappear into the sunshine . . . on the beach, sipping fruity drinks, and covering our bodies with oil. I’ll take a few hits now.

After the stick was gone and she had showered, Ellie came to bed. I was almost asleep when she aroused me. I took her with feral ferocity. She was there for me with full blow passionate dispassion. Sunlight seared my eyes. I was late.

************************

Being late makes the drive to work easier, because there is less traffic. Today my goal was to work on the ever growing past due folder. Make the threatening calls. Then, send someone to the customer to collect the agreed-to payment. Cash. No bad checks. We have enough of them already. For the really big problems . . . the ones who owe the store over seven grand, I should go myself. A little face time never hurt. It showed that we were not trying to strong-arm the debtor, just get what was legally ours. And, I could hint that we still wanted them as a customer. Today I am the Cunning Collector.

The Bric’s Hardware Store provides an alomost decent living for eight families. I had to resurrect the business by pumping a lot of sweat and borrowed money into it after dad drank the cash register dry. Beyond me, there are clerks and drivers. We all do multiple jobs to keep the personnel to the minimum and pay to the maximum. No turnover in three years. Everybody seems happy with their lots. But, keeping the downtown business going in the face of the chain stores, anchors at the two malls, is becoming increasingly difficult. That’s why collections had to be handled with a smile and kind words of promise. We would continue to extend credit if regular payments were made. But, we’re really between a rock and a hard place.

Too much money is tied up in inventory. Money we could recoup if our customers paid for what they bought. We had been behind the curve by extending credit in the glimmer of an economic uptick. No such luck. Now the subcontractors, who were always betting on the next job, are shit out of luck, because there are fewer and fewer and smaller and smaller next jobs. Plus, they spent their draws, and not on supplies. On their own mortgages and car payments. So, The Bric’s Hardware Store was left holding the bag filled with promises to pay, while we had to pay just to keep our shelves stocked. We must do everything possible to avoid empty shelves. Empty shelves are sure signs of retail death.

************************

Jonteil, have you run a tab on our past dues?

It’s in the folder three ways, alphabetized, ranked by amount, and ranked by age.

Thanks. Goddamn it, $156,548. Are you sure we’re that deep? Have we paid the sales tax on all this?

No. Just the ones that are over ninety days. That keeps the state from being nosey. I got a call from Ben Gustafson in Minneapolis yesterday. He’s reminded me that we haven’t paid Midwest Distribution anything for over ninety days.

Don’t worry about Ben. I’ll take care of Midwest. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to join me in an aggressive program of collection. For the next two days, with everything else you and I do, we will call these beloved deadbeats and browbeat them into paying all or a large portion of their bill. We will settle for nothing less than a single payment that covers our cost of the goods sold and the taxes owed. The balance, our mark up and taxes, will be due and payable in two installments over the next sixty days. We will drive to our clients and retrieve cash, or we will accept their credit card information over the phone. Either way, we will be paid. I’ll call the customers on this list. You can call the others. By the way, you can be as forceful as you need to be to get the money. Remember, it’s your money, too.

************************

With all the television bravado of the Impossible Mission Force, we set upon two days of unfriendly persuasion. Dialing and smiling. Setting appointments. Returning empty handed, because the target was away from the job. After, two of these non-events, we plan to ambush the noncompliant payee wannabes at their homes after work. A little familial embarrassment might facilitate fiduciary responsibility. Hopefully it will work.

Jonteil got cash from the cookie can under the sink. I got fifteen crisp one hundred dollar bills, apparently being saved for a rainy day. It rained that night. The net of all our cajoling and coercion was that we collected on less than a ten percent of the total number of outstanding invoices, just three of the receivables, which were 90 days or older, and none of the forty really big ones. I gave Jonteil thirty dollars for the use of her car. Next week we’ll repeat this process. Our quarter ends in three weeks. We have to be liquid by then. Or, we will have to plan our own funeral.

************************

Saturday. Fishing with Tommy and Marilee Bowen. The four of us fish every other weekend throughout the year. More of an outing. Most times we don’t catch anything worth keeping. The boat, picnic basket, and lots of beer. By the end of the day, who cares or knows if we’ve caught anything. Dinner at Nooners. Meat and scotch. Dancing and laughter.

Tommy, I heard they’re going to start layoffs soon at the plant. Is that true?

I can’t say.

You can’t say or won’t say?

I know, but can’t say.

Jesusfuckingchrist. What this town does not need now is layoffs at the plant. I mean, there are about twelve hundred families that rely on the plant for their mortgage, bread and butter. If layoffs start, many good people will be on the street. And the ripple effect will be terrible. Groceries won’t get bought. Loans won’t be repaid. Money, earmarked for jobs around he house or a new car, will be used for essentials. As the plant goes, so goes the town. So go all the merchants. So go I. How many people will be let go?

Between the four of us, management has decided to start with 120. If that 10% cut works to get the books in balance with production, they will stop. If not, more layoffs will be needed. Maybe another batch in four or five months. Until the finances are made true. They discussed across the board wage cuts to hold jobs, but the union balked. I think the union wants to get rid of some troublemakers. The layoffs will be at all levels. Seniority might protect some. So substitutes will have to be found.

You know what we need to do? We need to fold our tents and get out of town before it folds in on us.

Jesus, Bric, you’re sounding paranoid. We should stick it out. We can weather this storm, just like a Saskatchewan Screamer. Hunker in the bunker.

"Marilee, I’m scared, but not crazy. I just spent two days trying to collect past due bills. Jonteil and I only scratched the surface. It was hardly worth the effort if you consider the bad will the effort generated and the value of our hours. The people aren’t paying now because they spent money that wasn’t theirs to spend and no replacement money has come in. They fucked up and we fucked up because we extended them credit. They have no money to pay us and we can’t pay our wholesalers. The banks won’t lend us money on our receivables, because the people who are the receivables already owe the bank more than they can pay. They won’t lend us money on our inventory, because it’s not ours . . . we haven’t paid for it.

The wholesalers will decide soon to come and repossess what is theirs. Our shelves will be as empty as our bank account. The stench of death will fill the store and we will close. If you don’t think a crisis is coming, Marilee, tomorrow check out the school and the school district. See if there are spending slow downs or deferrals. Maybe outright elimination of budgeted items. Administration jobs that are going to be consolidated."

Bric, you’re being melodramatic. Things can’t be that bad.

For us at the store, they are that bad. Maybe not now for the rest of you, but they’ll get that way real soon. I had been guessing 30-45 days before the newspaper starts to write about the impending economic death. The City Council will put pressure on the paper to sit on the story to avoid a city wide panic. But, with the plant layoffs, the death knell will sound in a few weeks. Shit, unemployment is already in the low teens. The plant layoffs and the first collateral ripples will push it to twenty. The only way we can avoid the mess is to take a strong, positive step now. Move on. Start fresh somewhere else.

Why don’t we just rob the bank?

Tommy, that’s not as dumb as you might think.

Bric, I was kidding. Now you’re being an asshole.

Would we be able to visit you guys and your new best friends on Sundays? We’ll bring pies and cigarettes you can trade for sex.

Marilee, think long and hard about your financial future, before you shit all over my worries.

This conversation is getting too deep and too dark for me. It’s late. The day has been long. Let’s finish up and go home.

The ride home is deadly